Friday, November 9, 2007

Zzz-ing in Class

Throughout my years in the college classroom setting, I have seen it all. To be honest, not much bothers me in the classroom. Although, one thing really “grinds my gears.” That is students who sleep in class.

I am sure most students have fantastic excuses as to why they fall asleep in class. I’ve heard “I was working on a paper all night” to “I was up late studying for a midterm.” No matter what the excuse is students should not fall asleep in class.

To those that sleep in class, what in the world are you doing? Seriously, what are you thinking? If you are tired as all hell, stay home. Do you realize how foolish you look, your head bobbing, trying to stay up? Not to mention, how disrespectful and distracting it is to the professor and fellow classmates. Why show up to class if you’re just going to fall asleep. Stay home, in your warm comfy plush bed. Don’t make an ass out of yourself.

I have heard many students who fall asleep say, “At least I am in class.” Really, are you in class? If you’re sleeping in class, your pretty much not there. Go to class if you are fully awake, willing to listen and learn. You could even go to class just to meet up with your friends. What’s up fellas?

2 comments:

Back in the stone age, when I was a wee lass in college, I held down a full-time job as a data entry clerk, a mind-numbingly boring job. And I went to classes full-time. Not a lot of time left over for such things as snoozing, never mind boozing.

Luckily, I had one particularly great professor, who allowed me to set up my tape recorder, pay the guy who sat next to me to Xerox his notes, pile my books on the desk in front of me, put my head down on them and sleep through his entire lecture, two blissful hours, twice a week. It was all that kept me from becoming psychotic from lack of sleep. Then, for eight hours during the night shift while I sat typing numbers into a key-punch machine (if you don't know what that is, not surprising; they're all in museums now) I listened to his lecture, four times in a row. I had them memorized.

To my fellow students' continual amazement, I always made the top score on his mid-term and final exams.

Not saying everyone who sleeps through class is doing what I did. They probably aren't. But you can't always judge a book by whoever is sleeping on it...

Hey....I've just read your post and I feel really bad as I am one of those guys who ends up falling down on the desk. But sadly enough, I don't regret it, even though I feel bad about it. My solutions for that are almost similar to the 'nonny mouse' - pay for XEROX.

Although, my reasons for it are completely different than what you mentioned, your suggestion to 'Stay home, in your warm comfy plush bed' is not applicable to most of the students like me. Attendance percentage and such things makes staying home nearly impossible. Put in a raw way - "We are Forced to listen to the Lectures"... and that too by not-so-qualified(I do not mean any offence) prof's.

In my opinion, a good teacher/lecturer/professor manages to "KEEP" his class awake by his method of explaining, making it more interesting or lively.

I don't know how the situation is with everyone yet, but I just liked to say a few words on it.